embed scribus file option in pdf hybrid

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mnawij

A newer feature in libreoffice writer is to be able to save a copy of the writer file within the pdf file.  Would this be feasible within Scribus?  I would not use it for pdf files generated for press printing, but for backing up or sharing files I think this would be nifty.

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Writer/PDF_Hybrid

Regards,

mnawij

a.l.e

of course it would be feasible!

but: it would be -- mmm --- rather absurd to do so! :-)

if you collect for output a sla file you already a package that can be further edited by somebody on a different machine.
it would be easier -- and in my eyes also more meaningful -- to improve the .sla format and the way Scribus uses files to improve the way external resources are used by:

- allowing Scribus to pack them (and reference them in a relative way) in a project directory
- allowing Scribus to edit them even if they are zipped (in the same way as ODT is a zipped directory)

those goals are probably easier to achieve and would be very welcome from my side!

that been said, there are two big differences between LO Writer and Scribus:

- Writer reflows the content depending on various external resources (size of the page, fonts installed...) Scribus does not (so you don't need to a PDF to view the exact same result)
- Scribus often links to huge resource files (fonts, original images) and reduces their size when producing a PDF, the images linked from Writer are mostly of much smaller size.

personally, i'm not fond of abusing of PDF files to make them editable, but can understand why LO (or Indesign) is doing it.
i'm not really sure it's a good idea for Scribus, too...

Nermander

#2
Well, I guess it is just a matter of including the file as an attachment inte the PDF, so it's not a matter of "modifying" the PDF.

I guess it would already be possible to write a script that after exporting to PDF does a Collect for output and ZIPs everything into an archive. But then you would probably need a third party tool like pdftk to add it as an attachment to the PDF. And you would have to extract the attachment from the PDF to be able to edit it.


a.l.e

nermander, probably you're correct.

but what is the use case?

and the pdf created by scribus are already pretty big... i don't want to imagine the size of it with the full OTF fonts and hi res images included!

seriously, if you collect a project for output and move it to another computer (and correctly load the resources: this is something scribus should do by automatically, of course!) you already have a "good" (well it can and should be improved of course!) workflow.
i'm not sure that "abusing" of the PDF as a zip file is a good idea.

on the other side, you have no other way to hand over an ODT file with everything needed for further editing it. and there is no warrantee that an ODT file will look the same on another computer.
even if i don't like editable PDFs, i see that for writer it makes sense to have everything optionally packed in a pdf.

mnawij

a.l.e.,

You are just reversing the logic of my suggestion but I do like your suggestion better.  I will have to give some considerations to what improvements could be done to the .sla files ;D  maybe start a features post...

Regards,

mnawij